Posted on 10/15/2004 12:48:41 AM PDT by Kornev
1 Star
"What are you rebelling against, Johnny?"
"Whaddya got?" )
--Marlon Brando in "The Wild One" If this dialogue is not inscribed over the doors of Trey Parker and Matt Stone, it should be. Their "Team America: World Police" is an equal opportunity offender, and waves of unease will flow over first one segment of their audience, and then another. Like a cocky teenager who's had a couple of drinks before the party, they don't have a plan for who they want to offend, only an intention to be as offensive as possible.
Their strategy extends even to their decision to use puppets for all of their characters, a choice that will not be univerally applauded. Their characters, one-third lifesize, are clearly artificial, and yet there's something going on around the mouths and lips that looks halfway real, as if they were inhabited by the big faces with moving mouths from the Conan O'Brien show. There are times when the characters risk falling into the Uncanny Valley, that rift used by robot designers to describe robots that alarm us by looking too humanoid.
The plot seems like a collision at the screenplay factory between several half-baked world-in-crisis movies. Team America, a group not unlike the Thunderbirds, bases its rockets, jets and helicopters inside Mount Rushmore, which is hollow, and race off to battle terrorism wherever it is suspected. In the opening sequence, they swoop down on Paris and fire on caricatures of Middle East desperadoes, missing most of them but managing to destroy the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre.
Regrouping, the team's leader, Spottswoode (voice by Daran Norris) recruits a Broadway actor named Gary to go undercover for them. When first seen, Gary (voice by Parker) is starring in the musical "Lease," and singing "Everyone has AIDS." Ho, ho. Spottswoode tells Gary: "You're an actor with a double major in theater and world languages! Hell, you're the perfect weapon!" There's a big laugh when Gary is told that, if captured, he may want to kill himself and is supplied with a suicide device I will not reveal.
Spottswoode's plan: Terrorists are known to be planning to meet at "a bar in Cairo." The Team America helicopter will land in Cairo, and four uniformed team members will escort Gary, his face crudely altered to look "Middle Eastern," to the bar, where he will go inside and ask whazzup. As a satire on our inability to infiltrate other cultures, this will do, I suppose. It leads to an ill-advised adventure where in the name of fighting terrorism, Team America destroys the Pyramids and the Sphinx. But it turns out the real threat comes from North Korea and its leader Kim Jong Il (voice also by Parker), who plans to unleash "9/11 times 2,356." "Why that would mean ..." says Gary. "2,146,316," says Kim Jong Il. No. 1 on his list: Blowing up the Panama Canal.
Opposing Team America is the Film Actors' Guild, or FAG, ho, ho, with puppets representing Alec Baldwin, Tim Robbins, Matt Damon, Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn (who has written an angry letter about the movie to Parker and Stone). No real point is made about the actors' activism; they exist in the movie essentially to be ridiculed for existing at all, I guess. Hans Blix, the U.N. chief weapons inspector, also turns up, and has a fruitless encounter with the North Korean dictator. Some of the scenes are set to music, including such tunes as "Pearl Harbor Sucked and I Miss You" and "America -- F***, Yeah!"
If I were asked to extract a political position from the movie, I'd be baffled. It is neither for nor against the war on terrorism, just dedicated to ridiculing those who wage it and those who oppose it. The White House gets a free pass, since the movie seems to think Team America makes its own policies without political direction.
I wasn't offended by the movie's content so much as by its nihilism. At a time when the world is in crisis and the country faces an important election, the response of Parker, Stone and company is to sneer at both sides -- indeed, at anyone who takes the current world situation seriously. They may be right that some of us are puppets, but they're wrong that all of us are fools, and dead wrong that it doesn't matter.
Yea, Ebert is off his rocker when it's a political movie
what a hypocrite, he gave a thumbs up to F-911, where was the "At a time when the world is in crisis..." mantra when he reviewed Moores film????
I remember that! It was one of the most embarassingly fawning and gushing interviews I have ever seen.
What a sourpuss. Hey Ebert -- it's a parody...
It's funny -- Ebert not whining about this same point when he's reviewing the rest of the Affeck-Moore-Penn Hollywood garbage out there.
Obviously this is a MUST SEE movie. If it's got Ebert this ticked it must be GREAT!
CHICAGOLAND PING
This is hilarious - Ebert goes totally off the deep end about his Hollywood folks being criticized by puppets!!! And the concern about nihilism cracks me up as well - didn't Ebert help write "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" ?
In the handful of times I have watched South Park, they are always talking about something anal. The writers have an odd focus on various things either being inserted or coming out. I guess a lot of people find this funny, but for me it's a turnoff.
Now that I've seen the movie, I'd just like to say that not only is Ebert being a sour puss, but he's lying about the moive.
"It is neither for nor against the war on terrorism, just dedicated to ridiculing those who wage it and those who oppose it."
This is a lie, and the biggest one. The movie clearly comes out on the side of fighting the war on terror. While not being portrayed as perfect, Team America is the good guy. Gary, the character who is kind of the everyman in all of this, comes out for Team America in the end.
"where he will go inside and ask whazzup."
Never happens. While his initial inquiry isn't all that slick, he doesn't say anything that can be characterized as "whazzup".
"No real point is made about the actors' activism;"
Another lie. Their activism is portrayed as being self-important and largely ignorant.
I've actually noticed Ebert doing this before- when he doesn't like a moive, his review will have false information in it. Whether it's because he just wasn't paying attention or because he's just too damn dense to figure out what's going on, it's a awful trait for a moive critic.
I've noticed that often too, especially political ones. He'll insert stuff into ones he likes, and ignore or miss stuff in ones where he doesn't agree with the agenda.
Sloppy and poor. He used to be really sharp, but I think the cancer or maybe even Siskel dying has really wrecked his mind. algore losing too didn't help.
Ebert is a pinhead. I quit reading his "reviews" years ago when it was obvious they were based on his political leanings and not really about the movies.
Basically, if it's a feel good American movie he hates it. If it a foreign film he likes it. Especially if it has gay sex and dysfunctional characters.
I'll have to admit that some of his reviews are excellent.
He has the usual critic tendency to give far too much credit to anything offbeat or weird. (sunshine of spotless mind comes to mind)
But he is totally wacko lefty. I mean horribly so. I had a vicious e-mail battle with him about a nasty column he wrote about Barbara (twin) Bush wearing jeans to the Palace in England. She didn't, he was wrong but he wouldn't give up.
I couldn't believe this guy sends me like 5 e-mails arguing. I finally dropped it.
Isn't that redundant?
It's like when Mark Twain wrote: "Suppose I were a Congressman; now suppose I'm a crook, but I repeat myself."
;-)
I remember when Saturday Night Live did satires of Siskel and Ebert many years ago. The movie reviews always ended up about guys giving each other back rubs. It was a running joke in those skits.
User Rating: ********__ 8.0/10 (1,080 votes)
That's an exceptionally high ranking, and I'd be more inclined to believe the consensus of 1000+ movie fans over the opinion Roger Ebert.
And even the we blow everything up element is not much of a statement since I have heard the movie concludes with the message that although not perfect, somebody needs to step up.True enough...though it will be awhile before I hear someone mentioning a "PDA" without a good snicker. >:)
-Eric
Actual if not verifiable LOL
Beyond the VD bump. I don't like the producers' treatment of nature and nature's God either, but Ebert tempts me to see it.
Oh. For a moment, I thougth it may have been Madalyn Murray O'Hair.
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